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(4)Zelda vs (7)Mario (Legends Bracket) 2018
Ulti's Analysis Right about here is where Zelda's run became completely insane. I mean it already was, but this was the exact "oh shit" moment that made everyone just lose it. These two actually had two matches together ten years ago. It looked like this: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3250-division-2-round-1-fei-knuckles-mario-zelda https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3279-division-2-round-2-mario-zelda-mega-man-x-mudkip Mario has always struggled with the Zelda series, but he himself was a shit-kicking badass in these contests back in the day. But as of this match, this dude has a definitive and clear ceiling: The Legend of Zelda. All three characters have now tripped him up in contests. Link has beaten Mario like a drum, Ganondorf directly cost Mario a 3way match where Vivi snuck in for the win, and now this. Believe it or not this was a very close match for a long time, but Zelda took off near the very end. That said, Mario never once had a lead and Zelda was pretty much in control of things the entire time. Zelda won the board vote, and built up a 100 vote lead over an hour. Mario fought back a little, but one 40 vote update later and Zelda was holding serve again. She got it over 200 at midnight, and while Mario fought back a little overnight, we all figured Zelda would just go back up with the morning vote. Turns out it wouldn't actually happen that way. Zelda's lead fell to 60 overnight, but then the morning vote came and she shot right back up to 200. We all figured it was over at that point, but then Mario had one final small push in him before getting buried after lunch. These two were within 200 or so for 16 hours, but Zelda spent the last few just annihilating the guy. She eventually won by 500, which dispelled the whole idea of "The Mario Clutch". That hasn't been a thing for a long time, but Mario has lost enough close matches now to where we can put it to bed for good. Even the rematch with Samus doesn't technically count, which I'll get into later. Zelda was already the star of this contest, but this match converted any holdouts. Zelda was this contest's only real story at this point, as well as the only extended thing to hold our interest. She was the only one from the main bracket to go on a big run in the legends bracket. Including the main bracket, Zelda won 7 matches this year and beat three different Noble Nine members -- Snake, Sonic, and now Mario. Her bandwagon was growing really quickly, and if rallying were a thing, or if GameFAQs were still alive, she might have made a real push to win the contest this year. Unfortunately, this match would be her last victory. Doesn't make her run any less awesome, but this would have been so much cooler back when we had real vote totals. Still, that 1.66% prediction percentage can't go ignored. It's in the top ten hardest matches to call in the history of these contests, and is by far the hardest match to call for this one. In fact, the only things harder to call than this Zelda run are Draven, Undertale, and L-Block. Meaning this Zelda run was our biggest outlier for a non-rally ever. Most of the time this stuff is hard to explain, but in Zelda's case it's very simple. https://i.imgur.com/dUfpDKk.gif Breath of the Wild really did boost her this much. We'll see if her newfound Noble Nine level strength is sustainable, but for now let's just enjoy it, as this was legitimately the only sustainable bandwagon in Character Battle X with any real strength. Tifa was cute and all, but Samus destroyed her. Twice. Zelda actually threatened Link for 10 minutes and almost got a rematch with him. Ironically, Smash Bros being Nintendo's new strength was also what kept us from getting an all-Zelda grand final. Seeing her strength here was nuts. This girl went from losing to Charizard in 2013, losing to Snake in 2005, getting blown out by Mega Man in 2003.... to this. what an absurd jump in strength, and I freakin love it. We need way more examples of insane boosts or losses in strength. Props to you, Zelda. Star of the contest and by far the best story of the year. Well deserved, too, given people to this day keep getting Link and Zelda backwards. Sucks we didn't get a Zelda/Samus match either, but hey. Can't be greedy! Speaking of, props to the LOL x stat people for adjusting Zelda 3 points below a character she directly beat this year. Because Zelda wins this match, yet is somehow 3 points below him. Sure. You guys never fail with the unintentional comedy whenever a characters busts up your holy doctrine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW68goC4_es https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCaXycaYDhQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw2nfdNRAn0 Safer777's Analysis I still can't believe it. Well we said that when Zelda reached Squall that Squall had a chance to beat her. Nope. When she faced Snake we all said that was it for Zelda. Nope. Then Sonic maybe? Nope. But Mario? It is FREAKING Mario! Hierarchy! Nope. Zelda beat him. She beat everyone. Everyone! Do you know how many people had her reaching the final match? 1.66% which I believe is the 3rd lowest for a 1 VS 1 match! And one of the lowest predictions ever even if we count 4ways and 3ways of course. And she did it! Also another crazy thing is that Mario was NEVER ahead. Never! Zelda was always ahead of him. Every time Mario was cutting and came close to her, Zelda was pulling ahead. In the end there were porn rallies(of course there were)and Zelda managed to win with almost 500 votes too. I don't think anyone can say anything more. The final match is Link VS Zelda! Seriously! I know we jest and we say Nintendofaqs and Dronefaqs but there you go! Zelda big star of the contest no doubt. I guess we can say Zeldafaqs too now? Also another crazy thing about the percentage is that is the lowest for a non rally character/game too! I said there were some porn rallies but she would win without these too. Man BOTW did crazy things for the LOZ characters. Still amazing win. Congrats to the people that had her reaching the final match! You believed! Tsunami's Analysis Yes, it's really happening. The Zelda hype train was just too much to stop. Just like in her match against Snake, Zelda lost the registered vote but had enough unregistered vote to overcome the registered vote bonus. The trends were more pronounced here, though; whereas against Snake, she lost the registered vote by under 100 and made up for it with an unregistered vote lead of a bit over 300, here Mario took the registered vote by 203, only to lose the unregistered vote by 897. Zelda led wire-to-wire, too; it looked for much of the match as though the biggest obstacle to breaking Mega Man-Pikachu II's new record would be Mario taking the lead, as he fought back at times, getting the deficit under 60 at the 2-hour mark after it had ballooned to 100 in under an hour and kept rising, then later getting it into the low sixties again amidst an entire hour below 100 after it had already swollen to 225 at one point, and finally getting it briefly back down to double-digits at the 15-hour mark. In fact at that point, both of the Pikachu-Mega Man matches' records were in jeopardy, as with just 9 hours to go, the largest lead Zelda had ever held was 225. But that's when Zelda took off. She set a new largest lead only an hour and forty minutes after Mario's cut to 97, then eliminated the chance of breaking Mega Man-Pikachu I's record in the next update before eventually getting it all the way up above 500 with nearly 3 hours to go. Maybe Allen's onto something with these decreased-frequency contests. Back when we got them every year, X-Stats were usually fairly reliable. Our last known value for Zelda involved her getting LFFed by Donkey Kong enough that she couldn't beat Charizard in a close match, a result that seemed okay immediately after it happened but less so after Charizard lost in exactly the same fashion to Mega Man while ''Zero was the third character. Any result that makes you compare unfavorably to the Weighted Companion Cube does not reflect well on you, which is why everyone started calling Charizard a ''FRAUD (he kind of was, but the degree of it might've been a bit overstated.) And yet, here's Zelda looking every bit the elite character. Unlike last round, where everyone knew she'd beat Sonic after she'd beaten Snake, the Oracles still sided with Mario, with only 10% of them picking Zelda to pull the upset. Just 1.66% of brackets picked Zelda to reach the Legends' final, which was tied for 7th all-time most surprising outcomes (trailing only Draven's last three wins, Undertale's last two, and L-Block's championship; tied with L-Block reaching the championship). That's arguably not even the most impressive part of her run, though. Remember, there was also a "Second Chance Bracket" that applied only to the Legends Bracket portion. Unlike in the regular bracket, you already knew when filling out that bracket that Zelda was in the final 16, and furthermore you would have seen her dominate her four regular bracket matches. And even in that contest, only 6.88% of brackets picked Zelda! That figure of 6.88% would be good for a spot in the top 25 for 1v1 matches only, tied for 17th. This meant that the Legends Bracket finals, and presumably the grand finals, would be an SFF match, something we hadn't seen happen since Character Battle II (not counting Rivalry Rumble). Talk about an anticlimax. Category:2018 Contest Matches